I wonder if wineries back sweeten some wines?

[geek]

a friend brought over a bottle of white zinfandel by Woodbridge (Robert Mondavi), California 2009.

Both my wife and myself liked it very much and it was semi sweet, the bottle in the back said

"Our White Zinfandel has delicate fruit and floral aromas with lightly sweet flavors".

I assume we can check the SG but I didn't think about it until it was gone.

Does anyone know what SG level that might be at for this type of wine, if you know this wine?
I wonder how they achieve such a balanced and semi sweet flavor?

Wine was so good that I might be heading to liquor store to get a liter...

 

[jswordy]

Yup.

The flavor all depends on how much sugar/juice is added to the back end. I do semi-sweet wines all the time.

IMHO, checking the SG of that wine won't help with varieties other than that wine. The same SG on a pinot noir might not yield the same degree of sweetness.

And as we all know, the other taste variable is the quality and ripeness of the fruit used, and anything else added to the must on the front end.

 

[Boatboy24]

Like Jim said: "Yup".

But there is also the possibility of "residual sugar". I'm not exactly sure how that works, but it will result in a sweeter wine. I think involves the yeast fermenting to its max and dying off before the wine is completely dry. But how you measure residual sugar, I have no idea.

 

[geek]

Yup.

The flavor all depends on how much sugar/juice is added to the back end. I do semi-sweet wines all the time.

IMHO, checking the SG of that wine won't help with varieties other than that wine. The same SG on a pinot noir might not yield the same degree of sweetness.

And as we all know, the other taste variable is the quality and ripeness of the fruit used, and anything else added to the must on the front end.

I assume you go dry and then back sweeten your semi sweets.....

 

[Rocky]

Large operations like Mondavi have the capability to stop fermentation at a chosen brix level rather than fermenting to dry and back-sweetening.

 

[ckassotis]

Yeah a lot of smaller wineries will ferment dry and then back-sweeten to the desired level of sweetness. However, you can hit it with some sulfites and temperature crash it to stop fermentation at the desired residual sugar as well and not need to add any sugar at all to the wine.

Traditional port is made in this manner (residual sugar only), although they stop fermentation by bumping abv with the addition of neutral grape spirits.

 

[Runningwolf]

California is even starting to sweeten there reds. They aren't reporting it because they put in such a small amount to take off the edge but they realize where the money is.

 

[Wade E]

Yeah a lot of smaller wineries will ferment dry and then back-sweeten to the desired level of sweetness. However, you can hit it with some sulfites and temperature crash it to stop fermentation at the desired residual sugar as well and not need to add any sugar at all to the wine.

Traditional port is made in this manner (residual sugar only), although they stop fermentation by bumping abv with the addition of neutral grape spirits.

Please do not do this unless you have the means to sterile filter your wine immediately after cold crashing your wine or you will be asking for trouble. Fermentation can and most likely will start back up and usually at the most undesirable time like in the bottle. Yes it can take months even a year before it decides to start back up.

 

[ckassotis]

Absolutely, which is why even most small commercial wineries will not go this route. We were talking about a commercial wine though, which is why I brought it up! (Mondavi as well, which likely goes this route).

 

[DaveL]

Please do not do this unless you have the means to sterile filter your wine immediately after cold crashing your wine or you will be asking for trouble. Fermentation can and most likely will start back up and usually at the most undesirable time like in the bottle. Yes it can take months even a year before it decides to start back up.

So I'm guessing that the equipment to sterile filter a wine is cost prohibitive then?

 

[ckassotis]

I wouldn't say that it is cost prohibitive. However there is a lot of confusion about this point. From what I recall, just getting a 0.45 micron filter will not guarantee you are out of the woods - you need an absolute 0.45 micron filter to do the job correctly. I believe the "absolute" is a bit more expensive than the rest. It certainly is something you can do at home, but I imagine that relatively few people have the capability to do it.

In my opinion the easiest way for the home winemaker to end with a sweet wine is to simply sweeten it post-fermentation, add additional sugar up front to ensure that the yeast die off before it finishes, or to select a yeast that has a low alcohol tolerance (which also ensures they will die off early and not ferment it dry).

 

[ckassotis]

I might have that a bit mixed up - as in perhaps most people just opt for the 0.5 micron filters and that was the confusion. 0.45 is what you want for a sterile filtration, and I think those are a bit more expensive. I seem to recall some discussion about how some 0.45 microns were not quite up to snuff and would allow some larger particles to pass unless it was an "absolute", but can't say for sure offhand.

 

[Craiger]

We visited a small winery in Massachusetts. I tasted some of their wine and I was talking to the owner. I was talking to him about some of his sweeter wines and I asked how he made them. I assumed he backsweetened after it was dry and added K-Sorbate. He said that he didn't do that. He simply added the K-Sorbate to stop fermentation when he reached his desired sugar/alcohol level.

 

[DaveL]

We visited a small winery in Massachusetts. I tasted some of their wine and I was talking to the owner. I was talking to him about some of his sweeter wines and I asked how he made them. I assumed he backsweetened after it was dry and added K-Sorbate. He said that he didn't do that. He simply added the K-Sorbate to stop fermentation when he reached his desired sugar/alcohol level.

Then You would think he must do the sterile filtration discussed above right?

 

[Craiger]

Then You would think he must do the sterile filtration discussed above right?

Good question. He never mentioned it (but I didn't ask about it because I had never heard of that until now). If sterile filtration is an absolute, then I'm guessing he must.

 

[joeswine]

fermentation control

Having control of your fermentation process is what every winery does in one format or another,a while back I had a thread talking about stopping fermentation when you want it to,this control is very hard for a cellar dwellers to do ,do to the fact you need to be right on top of the fermentation at all times and requires a good knowledge of chemistry and balance,TIMING IS EVERY THING,wine masters,are payed to know and correct as they go along, know how much residual sugars are left ,cold fermentation is also employed in this process to cease yeast production and maintain residual sugars levels,backsweeting is also employed when the net result isn't what was predicted,from the winery's I ,m in personal contact with they use every tool in there arsenal the achieve what ever end they need.good subject.

 

[ckassotis]

You would indeed also need to sterile filter. Sorbate will not stop a fermentation - it just prevents the budding of yeast for reproduction. So while you may prevent new yeast from forming, you would be doing nothing to stop the remaining yeast from continuing to munch on the sugars unless you also sterile filter.

 

[DaveL]

So as I understand the topic. Residual sugar is really only something that would generally come into play in a wine that was gaining all its sugar from the fruit.
Otherwise if your using sugar/syrup to sweeten it or get it to a desired alcoholcontent. there would be no real benifit to attempt to halt fermitaion at a specific Sg in regards to sweetness. Does this make sense?

 

[DaveL]

Furthermore, If you used a yeast that dies off at a specific alcohol level, say 10% would sterile filtration still be needed?
Assuming you started with a Sg high enough so that you would still have sugars left in the wine this would be residual sugar correct?
I guess this would take alot of fruit or very sweet grapes correct?
I have so much to learn. I really enjoy this.

 

[ckassotis]

Yeah, if you are boosting the wine with sugar/syrup to begin with, I cannot se a reason you would stop it. The idea is that it will taste more pure/balanced using just the sugar from the fruit - it also reduces the alcohol % a bit, making it a lighter, easier-drinking wine.

If you use a yeast that dies at a specific alcohol level, I would say that you are fine without filtering. However, I would still probably dose it with some K meta and sorbate just to make extra sure. It's ~$2 in chemicals to ease my mind that I won't lose all those bottles if some freak fermentation starts up again when it gets warm or something. That being said, with a port, I wouldn't bother. I made a port with a yeast that should top out around 16-17%. It died off and then I bumped the alcohol up to 21-22 with everclear and then sweetened it back a bit. At that point I'm not worried about the yeast taking off again. If you are right on the border though, it is certainly possible to see renewed fermentation if the bottle gets a bit warm at any point.

Yeah - the residual sugar would be sugar left in your wine when you have stopped fermentation. These days it is taken to extend to mean any sugar in a finished wine. As in, if you fermented it dry and then added back 2% sugar, many people would call that 2% residual sugar. In my mind that isn't true residual sugar (residual from what?) but it seems to be what people use these days.

Generally it would certainly take perfectly ripe fruit though yeah. If you need to add additional sugar up front to get up to a certain % alcohol you might as well just add the amount needed to get to the alcohol % you want and then back-sweeten. If you're already correcting it there's no need to worry about stopping the fermentation at a specific point.